


If You Only Die Once

by HazelDomain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Can't Swim, Drowning, Gen, Newly Human Castiel, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Romance, sam is here too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 14:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6708571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelDomain/pseuds/HazelDomain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His head broke the surface of the water and he gasped, drawing air into his burning lungs. Human bodies were so fragile, he thought. He should probably spend more time learning the limitations of this one, because it appeared that staying under water that long was detrimental to-</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Only Die Once

**Author's Note:**

> Title from OneRepublic's [Something I Need](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBkV5fXot_0) which is more of a Dean and Sam song, so sue me. I'll fight u. 
> 
> Original prompt [here.](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/108669.html?thread=40925565#t40925565)

For a water spirit, the grindylow was deceptively fast on land. There were at least two of them, scurrying through the forest in a flurry of dried mud and leaves.

Castiel was having trouble keeping track of his, the flashlight beam swinging wildly as he pelted down the forest path, trying to watch the creature and keep his footing at the same time. Dean was on his left, shouting something that he missed under the crack of branches and the sound of his own labored breathing. On the right, he could see Sam’s flashlight beam bobbing, occasionally glancing upon another grindylow moving parallel to the first.

“The water! Don’t let them get to the water!”

There was Dean’s voice, clear as a bell through the trees, but he was too late. The beachhead was only a couple yards in front of them, and if anything, the creatures were getting faster as they slithered across the smooth expanse of gravel and sand.

Castiel didn’t slow down, just shucked off his coat as he pounded across the beach. His blade was in his hand, held in front of him as he dove into the black water. The grindylow was just below him, slimy and slick, writhing easily out of his grasp. He struck out with the angel blade, grimacing as it found purchase and the creature shrieked.

His fingers locked around a bony appendage and he grit his teeth, forcing himself to hold on as the thing tried to kick away. He was being pulled further from shore, but the creature was slowing.

He slashed out with the angel blade again, burying it deep into the creature’s body, and it bubbled and hissed as it died. He let go, and it vanished into the murky water.

He tried to stand up, but the water was deeper than he’d thought. His feet pushed against nothing but water. He kicked vaguely, but in the dark, he wasn’t even sure he was headed the right way.

His head broke the surface of the water and he gasped, drawing air into his burning lungs. Human bodies were so fragile, he thought. He should probably spend more time learning the limitations of this one, because it appeared that staying under water that long was detrimental to-

His head sunk under the water again and he was mildly irritated, because human bodies were buoyant, he knew that for a fact. He kicked at the water again, reaching his arms out and trying to push himself up. His face breached the surface again and he inhaled, staying afloat just long enough to think _now I’ve got it_ before he sank below the surface again.

It was worrying because the second time above the surface had been shorter than the first, just barely long enough to gasp, and the need for air was starting to seem rather urgent now.

Castiel kicked at the water again, trying to point himself in the direction he remembered the beach being. His foot glanced against a stone, and he pushed off from it, rising higher above the water. He inhaled as deeply as he could, searching for the hunters’ flashlight beams in the dark.

They were there, probably forty-five degrees away from the direction he’d guessed. He tried to wave but it was too dark, and the moment he raised his hand he sank below the surface again.

He couldn’t shout- he rose above the water just long enough to take half a breath, and then he was sinking again.

His lungs were screaming, his arms and legs responding sluggishly to his commands. It was counterintuitive, they were in this together, if he couldn’t kick, couldn’t swim back to shore, they were all going to drown. It made no sense for his vessel to cease functioning now, but nonetheless, all he was getting from his extremities was pain.

He flailed, trying to find the stone he’d pushed off from, but it was gone, and he was sinking.

The water was inky black, and cold, and he knew that if he inhaled now he’d suck water into his lungs, but the urge was there anyway, his brain howling at him to _breathe breathe breathe breathe BREATHE_ no matter how pointless he knew it would be.

Lights were beginning to spark, and at first he thought that maybe Sam or Dean was pointing a flashlight at him, but the lights were colored, blue and green and red, a lot of red-

Fire seared through his chest as his body overrode his orders and gasped, pulling water into his lungs. He choked and coughed, his traitorous body trying to expel the water and pulling more in, instead.

It was a badly designed system, he was beginning to realize, but his thoughts were coming slowly now.

The pain was beginning to fade, along with the lights.

He should talk to… talk to someone.

The designer.

Human vessels.

The designer.

 

 

“Did he get it?”

“I think so?”

There was a smear of grindylow goo across Sam’s front, garish red in the flashlight’s flickering beam. Dean’s had gotten wet in the scuffle, Sam’s was miraculously unharmed.

Dean panned his light across the surface of the lake, to where Cas had been treading water a minute ago.

“Do you see him?”

Sam’s light joined his, skimming at an angle across the dark surface of the water.

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

Dean’s heart beat a little faster, his light skipping across the rippled water, looking for a flash of pale skin against the black. Nothing.

“Cas?”

“ _Cas?”_

Dean took another few steps toward the place he’d last seen Cas, then stumbled when the lakebed dropped unexpectedly out from underneath him. He sputtered and choked, backpedaling onto solid ground.

“It gets deep, fast,” he said uselessly, shaking his ruined flashlight. “Did he come up yet?”

“No,” Sam said, and there was a tinge of worry to his voice.

“I’m going out after him. Cover me.”

Dean hurled the flashlight back up onto the beach, then turned and dove into the water, slicing easily through the darkness.

He reached out, fumbling blindly before surfacing.

“Where was he?” he called to Sam, treading easily.

“There!” Sam called, pointing the light to a spot a little to Dean’s right. Dean dove again, trying to get deeper, feeling for limbs in the darkness.

It was dumb, because Cas was a friggin’ _angel of the lord,_ and they don’t get killed by random grindylows from Bumfuck, Nebraska. They definitely didn’t _drown in ponds,_ that was just ridiculous.

His head breached the surface.

“Did he come up?”

“No!”

Dean dove again, grimacing as his hand brushed against a slimy protrusion he recognized as a grindylow corpse. He pulled at it, making sure it hadn’t pulled Cas down with it.

No angel.

“He definitely killed the damn thing!” he called back to Sam when he rose again. “Is he coming up?”

“No!”

Dean counted back. How long had it been?

Two minutes? Five? Ten?

He dove again, kicking hard, forcing himself down deeper into the water. His fingertips brushed the lakebed, grimy silt and worn stones scattering under his touch. He waved his arms across the flat expanse, looking for something, anything-

Cloth.

He didn’t think, just closed his fingers around it and wrenched upwards, pushing off hard against the rocky ground.

His head breached the surface with a gasp.

“Sam! I got him- help me!”

It was all he could do to keep the two of them afloat, splashing and struggling as he pulled Cas through the water. It was slow, and awkward, and Cas was nothing but dead weight. He could hear Sam splashing toward him and then his brother was beside him, helping him pull Cas through the deep water.

His foot caught against the ground and if anything, pulling Cas got harder because now they were standing, trying to drag six feet of soaked angel to the beach. The water dragged at their legs, the mud of the lakebed catching their shoes and slowing them down. They’d killed the lake spirits, it seemed the lake was angry.

The three of them collapsed into the shallows, too tired to care about the inch of water lapping at their knees.

“Cas? Cas?”

The angel’s skin was cold to the touch. Dean jammed a couple fingers into his jaw, feeling for a pulse. It was weak, but there.

“Is he breathing?”

Sam was going over Cas’s extremities, looking for anything that might be causing blood loss.

“No.”

Dean scrambled to remember the technique for rescue breathing. He’d learned it- his dad had drilled him on a thousand emergency scenarios when he’d started leaving him in alone-

 _Fuck,_ he couldn’t remember.

He gave it his best guess, tilting Cas’s head back and sealing his lips over the angel’s mouth. He pinched Cas’s nose shut and exhaled, shoving the air into Cas’s body.

The air that returned was cool, and Dean’s heart sank.

He tried again, pushing warm air into Castiel’s body, noting the way his chest rose and then fell under the thin cotton of his soaked shirt. Air was getting in and his heart was beating. So they should be fine.

He took another breath, pushing it back into Castiel and watching the rise of his chest. He couldn’t remember the frequency he was supposed to be doing this at, so fuck it, he was just gonna push air into the stupid angel until he woke up and remembered how to breathe by himself.

He pushed another full breath into Castiel, trying hard not to think about how cold his lips were, or how still his body was.

He resisted the urge to check for a pulse again. All he could remember from that stupid first aid site was that you could give chest compressions to the beat of ‘staying alive.’

He sealed his mouth over Cas’s again, getting halfway through another breath before Cas spasmed and choked, body heaving on the gritty mud. Dean expected him to cough water up, but he didn’t, just lay on the ground, panting in the dark.

“What the _hell_ were you thinking?” Dean snapped, once he was sure Cas could hear him. “Why would you go out there if you couldn’t swim?”

“Dean-” Sam started.

“No, don’t defend him. Why would you do that?”

“I didn’t realize,” Castiel rasped, and his voice was ragged and ruined in between gasps.

“Well, newsflash: you’ve got a human body and human bodies need air, and there’s no air under the water, dumbass!”

“I didn’t know I couldn’t swim,” Castiel answered quietly, looking over his body as though he wasn’t quite sure he could trust it. He lifted a hand, pressing it to his jaw, and Dean realized his teeth were chattering.

“Shit, man, where’s your coat? In the water?”

“Left it by the trees,” Castiel answered, and Dean scanned the treeline, looking for a pale spot that would betray the location of the jacket.

He thought he saw it, and trekked back up the beach toward it.

It was a little dirty but overall clean and dry, and when Dean returned with it, Sam had helped Cas to his feet. He was still dripping, and still shivering. Dean did some arithmetic. They were at least half an hour from the car, assuming they could find it without working flashlights. From there it was another twenty minutes out of the park, another half an hour to find a motel-

“Sam, think you can get a fire going?”

Sam nodded and was gone.

“Okay, Cas, this is gonna sound counterintuitive, but I need you to take your shirt off, okay?”

Castiel glanced up at him with disbelief, but his fingers rose to the buttons of his shirt, obeying even if he didn’t understand.

His fingers fumbled at the buttons and Dean took over, though he was shivering now too. He was cold, but not as cold as Cas.

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” he said quietly. The button on the collar was giving him trouble. “I forget sometimes, that you’re new at all this.”

“You were right,” Castiel replied. “It puts both of you in danger if I don’t know my limitations.” His teeth were chattering, but he obediently stripped out of his shirt. The skin underneath was cold to the touch.

Dean wrapped the dry jacket around him, helping him slide his arms into the padded sleeves.

“Better?”

Cas nodded.

“Marginally.”

“Give it time. You’ll heat up.”

“What about you and Sam?”

“We’re fine. We didn’t almost die.”

Castiel’s eyes were wide when he turned toward Dean.

“I almost died?”

Dean paused.

“Yeah, man. I mean, you stopped breathing.”

It was harder than he expected to get the words out. Before he knew he was going to do it, he’d reached out and pulled the angel toward him. Cas had seemed huge and heavy when they’d dragged him out of the water but now, shivering under the coat, he seemed impossibly small.

“I don’t wanna watch you die again, Cas. And for a minute there, I thought I’d have to.”

The hug was going on for longer than Dean felt like he could reasonably justify, but Cas wasn’t pulling away.

“I probably would have cried,” Dean said, and he was joking, because his voice wasn’t cracking and he certainly wasn’t getting choked up thinking about how close they’d come. “You know how I hate chick flick moments.”

Slowly, tentatively, Castiel’s arms closed around his back.

“I know,” Cas answered.


End file.
